Wednesday evening, the Estes Park International Aviation Club will hear further details from local Gary Coleman on the “Miracle on Buffalo Pass: Rocky Mountain Airways Flight 217,” which triggered one of the most dangerous search and rescue missions in Rocky Mountain history.

On Dec. 4, 1978, 22 people were on the Rocky Mountain Airways Flight 2017 flight from Steamboat Springs to Denver when the flight was forced down on Buffalo pass at 10,500 feet with severe icy conditions.

“This happened 40 years ago, so I’m finally able to talk about it,” First Officer Coleman said. “I’ve talked to a lot of World War II survivors a couple years back and they won’t say a word about what they went through. It took me 40 years, and it’s just a small tidbit of what they went through. So I now realize why they can’t talk about what they went through.”

The book by Harrison Jones, who was a captain for Delta airlines was published in 2017 and was well-received by the community. Coleman said it was a cathartic experience for all involved.

“People knew their little part of what happened,” he said. “But no one knew the whole story, and Harrison put everything together … Now people are starting to send in stories that have happened to them since and people who were in this airplane, for the incredibly most part are now very successful. They knew that they were given another chance to make their mark, and they did.”

Coleman himself has co-owned Ride-A-Kart in Estes Park for roughly six decades. He said his decision to get the story down on paper stemmed from a need to remember it as it happened rather the facts drift away with the continued passing of time.

During the presentation, Coleman is sure to explain exactly how the plane came down and what followed. News footage from Channel 9 will be shown. Then Coleman will share a little about the aftermath from the incident. He wants the big takeaway from this presentation to be that “life is short, don’t waste it.”

“There are always relaxed times in your life where you kind of just coast along,” he said. “If you take a little initiative and push that ‘coast’ into doing something, it’s better for everyone, especially the person who’s coasting.”

Coleman’s presentation will take place at the American Legion Post 119 Hall at 6:30 p.m.